Page 28 of The Girl He Claimed

Paige was done dancing aroundthis.

"Dr. Chang, where were youlast night?"

The doctor smiled then. "Andnow we come to the part where your theory falls down, Paige. I was on duty lastnight. With the chaos, I had to pull an extra shift. That's why I called insick today. It should be easy to confirm with the automatic logs."

Paige felt as though the world haddisappeared from under her feet. Dr. Chang had an alibi. One that would be bothdefinitive and easy to check. A great weight of frustration settled on Paige,and she had to force herself out of her seat, heading for the door to theinterrogation room.

Christopher followed her out.

"Paige, don't let her get toyou," Christopher said, his voice low.

"I know, I know. But it's sofrustrating. We had her cornered, and now she has an alibi. She played throughall of this just to mess with us."

"Maybe it won't checkout," he suggested. "The hair clip-"

"Could have been stolen andplanted. Adam and the Exsanguination Killer are playing games with us. The onlyquestion is why Dr. Chang played so many of her own games in there rather thanjust coming out and telling us that she had an alibi."

"Maybe she was just pissedabout being brought in," Christopher suggested.

"It's more than that, it hasto be. She was doing this before we brought her in."

Christopher got an alert on hisphone then. He frowned at it.

"The team going through hercomputer found something: it looks as though the doctor has been writingprescriptions on the side for cash for whatever people ask for. Painkillers,mostly. All of this... I think she knew that we'd find the truth, so she musthave been trying to undermine you, or trying to distract from it."

If she could get Paige to lash out,then her lawyer would probably be able to get her released without any furtherinvestigation into that side of her.

All of that, just to stop Paigefrom finding out that the doctor had been writing prescriptions that sheshouldn't? It seemed like an overreaction, but it did seem to fit with whatPaige had seen of Dr. Chang. She wasn't trying to hide the fact that she was aserial killer, just that she was pushing pills to anyone who wanted them.

Paige let out a sound offrustration. The hair clip really had been planted there to deceive them. Theywere back to square one, again.

Then she realized that Dr. Changhad given Paige and Christopher something without meaning to.

"Dr. Chang said that we couldconfirm her alibi by using the security system," Paige said. "Butthat isn't just true for her. We will have sign in and sign out information forall the staff there last night."

"Yes?" Christopher said,obviously not quite getting it. "Didn't we already look at that for thetime Riker escaped?"

"We did," Paige agreed."So now we have two, overlapping sets of data. If we look over both sets,we'll be able to see who was in the building both times. It will help us tonarrow down our pool of suspects!"

It might even be enough to givethem the identity of the Exsanguination Killer.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Exsanguination Killer paced thefloor of the spot where they were hiding out, while Adam watched the screens tomake sure that no one was approaching. He assumed that she was pacing foreffect since she was normally so still, like a spider waiting in a web.

"The business with the hairclip was an unnecessary flourish," she said.

"A flourish, yes. Unnecessary?Hardly. Besides, you're the one who procured it for me." Adam kept histone reasonable. He suspected that if it was anything but that, then the two ofthem would end up fighting, and one of them would die. While he was sure thatit would be her, he knew it was always better not to take chances with suchthings.

The last time he'd underestimated awoman, it had been Paige King, and she'd shot him. Adam could still feel thetightness in his shoulder from the now-healed wound.

"I'd assumed that you woulduse it to lay a more subtle false trail than simply leaving it at the crimescene," she snapped.

Adam almost lunged at her then. Hetensed to do it but stopped as he saw that she was quietly, without any fuss,holding one of those scalpels that she liked to use on her prey. It was enoughto make him reconsider, to make him try to reason for once instead of suddenviolence.

"The point of it wasn't to besubtle," Adam said. "Paige was always going to see through the ruseonce it became clear that Dr. Chang couldn't be the killer."

"She has enough of thepsychological profile to fit my work," the Exsanguination Killer pointedout. "She is controlled, precise, clearly angry with the world..."

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